Nevada City, CA — Area struggling author Roy Riffle is worried that he will not grow a beard long enough to satisfy the requirements of the inevitable arrival of Sharia Law. Mr. Riffle, who has lived in Nevada City all his life, recently announced to a small crowd at a local cafe that he intended to grow a beard to become compliant with Islam’s moral code and religious law.
“You made me confess the fears that I have,” announced an unsteady Mr. Riffle to the indifferent hipster crowd, “but I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear being alone or being spurned for another or leaving whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”
But according to sources close to Mr. Riffle, he is worried that he will not be able to grow a beard.
“Oh, Roy is largely hairless,” said Ms. Aideen Riffle, Roy’s mother, in a The Fazzler telephone interview. “I mean, except for on his head. Plenty there. I don’t think he’s ever shaved before. So I know he’s concerned about the lashings he’s going to get when Sharia Law arrives in Nevada City.”
According to the Islamic Perspective of the Beard, “[t]he shaving of the beard, in general, is considered to be from amongst those actions which the Lawgiver (Allah) has indeed considered unlawful. This is to such an extent that it is regarded a sin by which an individual may be considered worthy of being punished.”
Just a couple of years ago, many conservative locals were petrified about the prospects of Sharia law coming to Nevada County with its punishments ranging from scolding and public embarrassment, all the way to beatings. Since then, that worry seems to have waned for them, but not for Mr. Riffle. He prefers to prepare for everything.
“If I can’t get this beard to grow,” continued Mr. Riffle, “I’m just going to glue one on like they did in Monty’s Python’s the Life of Brian. You know, the women playing men had to wear them to go to the stoning. ‘Are there any women here today?’ [Mr. Riffle chuckles] And then there are men, playing women, playing men. So I think that will work.”
